How Do You "Spoil" Your Pets?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Our dogs get a home-cooked diet, a recipe created for them by a canine dietician (whom I was slightly disappointed to discover was merely human specializing in canine diets – I was hoping for a black lab in a white lab coat). Before the recipe settled the issue, they had been having digestive troubles with a wide variety of different, supposedly mild and safe foods suggested to us by vets. The cooked food gets supplemented with Dick Van Patten’s Natural Balance kibble.

Other than that, they are not “spoiled” per se. We set rules for them and we are consistent* so that they have security as well as good behavior. Our rules aren’t very draconian, though. We don’t let them on furniture or the human bed, but they do get their own beds touching the human bed, they get invited up into laps, and we often get down and sleep with them on the floor. They don’t eat when we’re eating or eat human food.** They do have to sit before we set the dinner plate down, but that’s all they have to do, and they get daily peanut butter at lunchtime and lots of unsalted peanuts as treats. The dogs have a big toybox and toys are rotated in and out to give them some variety.

And I only take Simone to public “humans and dogs” events that are convenient, not every one; the next one is October 15th.

Sadie doesn’t like being dressed in clothing and always hunches over like she’s been punished, but Simone likes being dressed up and will dance around if I pull out her hoodie, princess shirt, or angel costume. Did I mention she’s a pit bull?

The birds get soft food (typically cooked pasta, rice, corn, peas) every couple of days, and a seed/pellet selection at all times. I spend a few hours in the bird room almost every night – significantly, if there’s not enough time to do everything, I get released from chores so that the birds still get time. Cosmo (cockatiel) likes being preened/petted, and Scritch (female budgie) likes to sit on my shoulder and chatter in my ear…Buddy (female cockatiel) is more standoffish with me, but likes to hang near me and watch. She likes my wife better.

The hamster gets out-of-cage time every night, in a hamsterball and a playpen with a wheel in it bigger than the one in her cage. She also gets carried around a bit some nights. And she gets half a grape when we have them.

The cat gets everything he wants or he’ll start maiming us. He’s bossy, impatient, and destructive during the day. He gets to go out on the balcony any time he makes a fuss. But at night he creeps up onto our bed, purring, and acts like he likes us for some reason. He is gradually getting nicer as he ages.
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42

This.

When my dog is sleeping, and just this darn cute(!), how could we make her move? We have only a full size bed, and though she’s not a very big dog, somehow she can sprawl out taking up most of it if we don’t race to get in the bed before her. So my wife and I have been known to sleep at 45 degree angles, or curled up on the lower half of the bed, etc. Who’s in charge here, right? the answer is obvious.

43

Oh. Forgot about the cat tree. SpouseO and I spent an entire weekend and about $200 making a full on cat tree for the cats. It looks like a tree, with three “bough” platforms winding around the trunk leading to a large tree top platform covered with fleece. It’s covered with fabric - brown tye-dyed corduroy for the trunk, and green fleece on each platform surrounded by a leaf patterned green fabric bolster. It’s padded with foam and stuffed with polyfill or whatever. Stands about 5ish feet tall.

There’s a gray mushroom next to the trunk that provides the first platform up to the tree’s branches - it’s stuffed and covered with a soft gray monster fur type fabric.

It’s pretty keen. The cats seem to love it.

44

Snickers… picture, please? That sounds awesome!

45

I would love to see pictures of the homemade cat trees and stuff, in addition to the pets themselves!

46

i third the need for cat tree pictures!

for those playing along at home, recently the superkitty contingent at casa scubaqueen increased by one. i am now ruled by the terrible trio: turk, maggie and 8/9-wk-old widget.

as always, the superkitties have the run of the house (except for the kitchen counters), are free to sleep with me if they choose, and pretty much do as they please. maggie still won’t let turk up on the bed, but she’s conceded defeat where the kitten is concerned because the kitten just ignores her.

there is still much hissing and staring, but there are signs maggie is beginning to thaw. in fact, the two girls spent sunday curled up on either side of me on the couch and there was peace throughout the land. turk hisses every once in a while, but is otherwise underwhelmed by the new kid.

widget is too young yet for treats, but the older kids get treats whenever they ask, which is pretty much daily if they think to catch me before i leave for work.

47

Okay, I will admit it, I have you all beat… my Shorkie has her own kiddy pool. She loves to sauna and play in there… she cools down through her feet, lies down, sauturates her thick coat, hydrates and Plays in the cold water. Very hot-blooded dog, ever since her, heavy metal (zinc from a couple of pennies) detox, transfusion, and stomach surgery. I think she operates around 100 degrees.

48

Seriously, in my shorkie, I have a toy, birding, varmint, retriever and waterdog. But she’s terrified of a beach… it’s the sound of the waves… hates and cowers to thunder, fireworks, and gunshots as well.

49

She also loves the snow, can’t wait to play with her first snowfall.

50

I’ll see if I can snap one tonight. I’ll admit, I’m afraid of what my husband will say - “You need a picture for your imaginary friends?” - but I’ll give it a shot. Heh. Pun not intended.

51

I built a custom-size cage that fits in our “pantry”-style storage area, for our two rabbits. I patterned it after ones I’d seen online, ones constructed from wire storage cube panels and zip ties, but since it had to be narrower than usual, I made the ends out of wire shelving-by-the-foot from the hardware store. I cut indoor/outdoor carpeting to fit the platforms inside, and installed casters on the bottom of the flooring to make it slide in and out of the pantry easily.

They barely spend any time in there. We have them in a big playpen in the living room most of the time, so they’ll be near us, and most of the weekend plus some evenings, we let them out to run around the living room. Because they chew cords, I set up all kinds of cord protectors for isolated cords, and hardware cloth (stiffer, smaller chicken wire) panels to wrap around things like the entertainment center. They’re rabbits, they need time to run, and it melts my heart to see them do a little hop straight up (typically called a “binkie” by rabbit owners, and it’s an expression of joy).

I also pay for a share of a local organic farm’s crops from about June to November each year (community-supported agriculture), and they always send more lettuce and greens than my husband or I can eat each week. The rabbits get much of that; they need a variety of fresh lettuces/greens in their diet, and after dealing with losing most of my ferrets to one variety of cancer or another, anything that’s less likely to cause harmful ailments is a-OK to me.

One of the rabbits just adores sitting on my lap and being petted, and he licks my hand a lot in the process. He’s a serious attention slut; he headbutts my hand if he wants more petting. The other loves sitting next to my husband on the couch and being petted.

52

I have to admit that when I was house-hunting and walked into the house I would eventually buy, the first thing I noted was the presence of a “cat shelf”–a wall that doesn’t extend to the top of the vaulted ceiling. The cats sit up there and can observe both the kitchen and the living room at the same time. It was a huge deal for me to have a house that was cat-friendly.
Bobbin (cat) gets picked on by Trouble and Six, so she gets her own “room”–when she comes in afte a day of outsideness, she heads for the main bathroom, which is her own personal space.
The big dogs get the garage to sleep in (except in the winter when it’s too cold, or sometimes the summer when it’s too hot). They have various quilts and beds in the living room, as well. Hotrod, though, gets to sleep with one of the kids or with me, and stays in one of the bedrooms when I’m out of the house. (I don’t generally leave 3 dogs alone together; like children, the probability of fights increase dramatically when you add a 3rd beast into the mix.)
And I’m seriously considering getting my dog a cat.

53

Meet Oliver, Clara laBlanca, and Alias Alibi Erickson-Pop, the three spoiled-rottenest parakeets in California!

For one thing, I make them their own custom birdie chow: half good-quality petstore parakeet seed mix with added safflower seeds, oat and buckwheat groats, and little black sunflower seeds and half pelleted parakeet chow – two kinds, one plain and one with bright red and green fruit-flavored bits.

They also get their favorite “greenies” as often as possible: parsley, spinach, leafy lettuce and young beet tops.

And then there’s whole heads (or “sprays”) of millet (aka “The Birdy Dope” because of how crazy they go for it and what they’ll do to get some). The only reason I don’t lay a spray a day on the little fiends is so I can use it to bait and bribe them with as needed.

Oh yeah, and they get live entertainment, too. Specifically, I can waste a half hour singing them songs (Alias even has his own original theme song, to the tune of “I’m Hennery the 8th, I Am”, called – of course-- “I’m Alias the Parakeet”)and reciting the few poems I know by heart: Jabberwocky, Gilbert Shelton’s When I Set My Chickens Free, and three or four really filthy limericks. In several different parakeet-amusant voices, no less!

Furthermore, when we leave them alone in our pad, we always leave the radio on for them – usually KALX or KUSF, because they play such a wide variety of music, but sometimes sports talk radio instead so they can enjoy the human voices.

Pets are for spoiling, ain’t they?!

54

And I took the pictures, then promptly forgot the camera at home. I’ll try to post them tonight; if not, then tomorrow for sure. Maybe will get some of the cats, too.

55

Oh yeah, I didn’t mention it, but we leave the radio on all day for our birds too (in their dedicated bird room, where the cages are open all day so they can come and go as they please).

56

If I had to have an outside dog I would totally build a kennel like that. It’ll save you time and money in future vet bills anyway!